DEHRADUN: Permission to open new ANM (Auxiliary Nurse Midwifery) centres in Uttarakhand has been stopped by the Medical Education Department. The Department has taken this decision due to the saturation point reached.

The ANM training involves a period of two years after which a student primarily works in state run health facilities to improve mortality rates of both mother and child, by helping women deliver safely. Beyond this there is little scope for an ANM nurse.

According to, Director, Medical Education Department, Dr Ashutosh Sayana, “Approximately 2300 ANMs are currently working in health department, while 3000 are still unemployed,” as reported in the TOI

There are six government institutions which run ANM courses. Five of the six are are women health worker Training Centers and one a State School of Nursing. Besides these there are eighteen private ANM colleges. All together churn out 300-500 students every year with ANM degrees, with little or no scope of employment. This is the case as vacancies in the health department are full. The contract jobs pay very small salaries.

The state health department has announced that permission for opening GNM centres would remain as it was, as the course offers greater scope, career path, job opportunity and scope, unlike the ANM course. A GNM degree holder can also do a BSc nursing and get into teaching and specialized nursing training. Experts in Uttarakhand feel that the move is in favour of students of Uttarakhand, who will no longer go around aimlessly looking for ANM positions. A similar ban is likely to be placed on Dental colleges, where the no of dentists coming out of colleges exceed demand.